Seeing the World Through the Other’s Eye: An Online Intervention Reducing Ethnic Prejudice

by Gabor Simonovitis, New York University, Gabor Kezdi, University of Michigan and Peter Kardos, Bloomfield College

We report the results of an intervention that targeted anti-Roma sentiment in Hungary using an online perspective-taking game. We evaluated the impact of this intervention using a randomized experiment in which a sample of young adults played this perspective-taking game, or an unrelated online game. Participation in the perspective-taking game markedly reduced prejudice, with an effect-size equivalent to half the difference between voters of the far-right and the center-right party. It, also reduced antipathy toward refugees, another stigmatized group in Hungary and reduced vote intentions for Hungary’s overtly racist, far right party by 10%-points. Importantly, these effects persisted for at least a month, suggesting that our intervention led to genuine attitude change. Our study offers a proof-of- concept for a general class of interventions that could be adapted to different settings and implemented at low costs.

Democratic Citizenship and Denationalization

by Pattti Tamara Lenard, University of Ottawa

The power to denationalize citizens – that is, to revoke citizenship – is one that many states have historically claimed for themselves, but which has largely been in disuse in the last several decades. Recent terrorist events have, however, prompted scholars and political actors to reconsider the role that denationalization can and perhaps should play in democratic states, in particular with respect to its role in protecting national security and in supporting the global fight against terror more generally. I argue that denationalization laws have no place in democratic states. To understand why, I propose examining the foundations of the right of citizenship, which lie, I shall argue, in the very strong interests that individuals have in security of residence. I use this formulation of the right to respond to two broad claims: 1) those that claim that it is justifiable to denationalize citizens who threaten to undermine the safety of citizens in a democratic state, and 2) those that claim that it is justifiable to denationalize dual citizens because they possess citizenship status in a second country that is also able to protect their rights.

Durkheim on Social Justice: The Argument from “Organic Solidarity”

by Lisa Herzog, Technical University of Munich

Writing in the 1890s, Émile Durkheim, one of the founders of sociology, developed an argument about social justice that is still relevant today. He argued that modern societies require a specific form of solidarity that is based on difference rather than similarity: “organic solidarity.” This solidarity can grow out of processes of divided labor, in which individuals experience the mutual usefulness of different occupations, but only if these processes happen “spontaneously.” This spontaneity is undermined by social inequality: social inequality distorts prices, such that they are perceived as unjust, and it undermines the equality of opportunity that modern society promises to its members. The paper reconstructs Durkheim’s argument and connects it to contemporary debates about just prices and equality of opportunity. It also discusses a problem neglected by Durkheim, namely that the perception of social justice can be ideologically distorted. The connections between social inequality, its perception, and social relations in the workplace deserve attention from the perspective of political theory and political science.

The Politics of Policy: The Initial Mass Political Effects of Medicaid Expansion in the States

by Joshua D. Clinton, Vanderbilt University and Michael W. Sances, University of Memphis

Did the expansion of Medicaid provided for under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 also increase political participation? Many thought that the passage of the ACA would help cement Democratic majorities in the House and Senate by creating politically active constituencies invested in the continued success of the ACA due to the large number of individuals receiving health insurance from the expansion. However, it is unclear whether public policy can feedback into electoral politics for complicated and highly-politicized policies such as the ACA. Comparing the political participation of counties in states that did and did not expand Medicaid reveals that counties in expansion states experience higher political participation relative to similar counties in non-expansion states. Moreover, the increases we observe are concentrated in counties with the largest percentage of eligible beneficiaries. The expansion of Medicaid has produced a higher percentage of registered voters through the 2016 election, but turnout increased only in the 2014 midterm elections.

This article evaluates Jürgen Habermas’s attempt to reopen political liberalism to religion. In trying to “take religion seriously,” Habermas goes further than John Rawls and other liberal theorists by affirming that religious traditions articulate truths on which democratic societies continue to depend for their civic and moral health. “Post-secular” societies, in his view, should learn from religion by translating its “moral intuitions” into universal secular language. Although Habermas in this way appears friendlier to religion than Rawls, unlike Rawls he also calls for the “modernization of religious consciousness.” This theological transformation not only reveals the foundationalist presuppositions of liberalism, but also points to a highly attenuated conception of learning from religion. Taking religion seriously will require us to be open to its insights not only when they agree with, but especially when they challenge, our secular presuppositions. This dimension of religion is at risk of getting “lost in translation” in the Habermasian paradigm.

A large literature expects rising middle classes to promote democracy. However, few studies provide direct evidence on this group in nondemocratic settings. This article focuses on politically important differentiation within the middle classes, arguing that middle-class growth in state-dependent sectors weakens potential coalitions in support of democratization. I test this argument using surveys conducted at mass demonstrations in Russia and detailed population data. I also present a new approach to studying protest based on case-control methods from epidemiology. The results reveal that state-sector professionals were significantly less likely to mobilize against electoral fraud, even after controlling for ideology. If this group had participated at the same rate as middle-class professionals from the private sector, I estimate that another 90,000 protesters would have taken to the streets. I trace these patterns of participation to the interaction of individual resources and selective incentives. These findings have implications for authoritarian stability and democratic transitions.

How the Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction, Not Engaged Argument

The Chinese government has long been suspected of hiring as many as 2 million people to surreptitiously insert huge numbers of pseudonymous and other deceptive writings into the stream of real social media posts, as if they were the genuine opinions of ordinary people. Many academics, and most journalists and activists, claim that these so-called 50c party posts vociferously argue for the government’s side in political and policy debates. As we show, this is also true of most posts openly accused on social media of being 50c. Yet almost no systematic empirical evidence exists for this claim or, more importantly, for the Chinese regime’s strategic objective in pursuing this activity. In the first large-scale empirical analysis of this operation, we show how to identify the secretive authors of these posts, the posts written by them, and their content. We estimate that the government fabricates and posts about 448 million social media comments a year. In contrast to prior claims, we show that the Chinese regime’s strategy is to avoid arguing with skeptics of the party and the government, and to not even discuss controversial issues. We show that the goal of this massive secretive operation is instead to distract the public and change the subject, as most of these posts involve cheerleading for China, the revolutionary history of the Communist Party, or other symbols of the regime. We discuss how these results fit with w

hat is known about the Chinese censorship program and suggest how they may change our broader theoretical understanding of “common knowledge” and information control in authoritarian regimes.

New APSR article “The Death Camp Eldorado: Political and Economic Effects of Mass Violence”

by Volha Charnysh, Princeton University,Evgeny Finkel, George Washington University

Armed conflicts often involve massive redistribution of property through confiscation, looting, extortion, and even grave digging. The dead lose everything; refugees leave behind houses, land, and valuables. The possessions of even the poorest person can be of use to those who kill, expel, or simply stay put and survive. Yet, we still know little about the long-term political and economic effects of wartime property transfers. This article examines such effects by focusing on the impact of benefiting from Jewish property during and after the Holocaust. Specifically, we analyze the long-term impact of the Treblinka death camp, operated by the Nazis in occupied Poland during WWII. There, the valuables of murdered Jews sometimes ended up in the hands of locals through trade with the camp’s guards and post-war grave digging. We find that in communities close to the camp, more than fifty years after the Holocaust, the anti-Semitic League of Polish Families party received a significantly higher percentage of votes than in communities further away. Communities close to the camp also experienced a post-WWII real estate boom but currently do not enjoy higher levels of economic and social development than communities that did not benefit from Jewish property.